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Whenever I leave my office building for lunch a guard in charge greets me (everyone) with a:

お疲れさまです。いらっしゃいませ。

Edit: This is a recording of what I heard. Based on comments I received under this question and what I set my ears to hear, I do hear either いらっしゃいませ or いってらっしゃいませ when playing back.

Original question:

I am used to hearing the phrase いらっしゃいませ for "welcome" (explained to come from 居る "be" or or 来る "come"), but in this case I am leaving, it's not my destination and I won't spend more than a second hanging around the guard.

Why isn't it odd? If it's indeed いらっしゃいませ what image should I create in my mind when told so? Me coming to the guard's place, me leaving the building, me being, me leaving and coming back?

macraf
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    「行ってらっしゃいませ」の聞き間違いでいいのでは。別に変な表現じゃないと思います。 – naruto Oct 30 '15 at 04:02
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    In this case you're leaving your office building for lunch so 「お疲れ様でした。いらっしゃいませ」wouldn't sound natural. You wouldn't say いらっしゃいませ to someone leaving. 私も「お疲れ様でした。行ってらっしゃいませ。」と言っているのだと思います – chocolate Oct 30 '15 at 07:51
  • And such greetings tend to be heavily slurred. Unless you're in a luxury hotel or a five-star restaurant, you can't expect someone say 行ってらっしゃいませ "properly". – naruto Oct 30 '15 at 07:54
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    In the evening >> so it's when you're going home, right? They wouldn't say いってらっしゃいませ when they don't think you're coming back that day... – chocolate Oct 30 '15 at 07:58
  • @macraf http://haikugirl.me/2014/01/19/word-of-the-week-ittekimasu-itterashai/ – naruto Oct 30 '15 at 07:59
  • Ewww... ((+_+)) – chocolate Oct 30 '15 at 08:02
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    @macraf I know, a guard never says いっ-て-らっ-しゃ-い-ま-せ at all :-) It may sound to you as something like いゃーしゃっせー, いやしゃーぃ, うやしゃー, てしゃーす, てやっせーぃ. But that's 行ってらっしゃい spoken super quickly. Even native speakers' ears can't "hear", but we just "know". – naruto Oct 30 '15 at 08:31
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    "Choco is admitting いらっしゃいませ might be used for someone leaving for a lunch" >> No no... I wrote "You wouldn't say いらっしゃいませ to someone leaving" – chocolate Oct 30 '15 at 12:33
  • @choco I misread your comment! Sorry. Doing some clean-up now... – macraf Oct 30 '15 at 12:42
  • @naruto I added a recording to my question - I think it shall be enough to turn your comment into an answer. For me - I can hear both: いらっしゃいませ and いってらっしゃいませ depending on what I set my ears to hear, but as you and Choco pointed out (and that was my question) if the first one is not valid grammatically, then it must be the other. – macraf Nov 10 '15 at 12:08
  • @choco thank you for your previous comments, just pinging to let you know I added an actual recording to the question – macraf Nov 10 '15 at 12:09
  • ふふふ・・・「いらっしゃいませ」って聞こえるｗｗｗ「てらっしゃいませ」にも聞こえる・・ – chocolate Nov 11 '15 at 08:55
  • @choco 言語聴覚療法というタグを作ろうかなぁ〜 – macraf Nov 11 '15 at 11:25

1 Answers1

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いらっしゃいませ is one of those words that can mean its own opposite -- at least, from an English speaker's perspective. It's the imperative or command form of a super-polite 敬語【けいご】 word that can mean: to go, to come, or simply to be.

That said, given it's etymological origins in the word 入る【いる】, and the way the term is often used by shopkeepers to mean come on in, your guess at come back [into the building] is probably right.

UPDATE

There's some interesting commentary by native speakers under the question post, pointing to a greater likelihood that the いらっしゃいませ heard by the asker is instead a slurred or informally contracted 行ってらっしゃいませ. This would seem to better fit the stated situations in which the asker has heard the phrase.

chocolate
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